Greek food for a Greek daddy.....

Just going through the photos from the past few days, and I was reminded of those rare days of sunshine round here, and one in particular where we felt like making something "sunshiney" for dinner and as requested by Nico and Sophia - "for daddy". Being of Greek Cypriot descent, we decided to make a dinner fit for a Greek daddy - Cypriot vegetables, a Greek salad and some home-made pita breads. It turned out pretty well - and eaten outside - it was every inch the taste of sunshine.........

I love it when I make something and I don't follow the recipe and it works out. Usually not following the recipe for me, means trying to make it healthier, or not having the right ingredients so risking it and using something not nearly the same - and when it comes to baking - it usually means using spelt flour no matter what flour is called for. The pita breads turned out brilliantly - even had proper pockets to fill and everything! Here's the recipe we used:

4 cups whole spelt flour
1 tbsp honey
2tsp dried yeast
300ml warm water

Dissolve the yeast in warm water and honey. Leave for about 10 minutes. Add flour until workable and knead for a few minutes. Grease bowl with olive oil and cover with a tea towel - leave to rise for about 1 1/2- 2 hours.
Preheat oven to 220c. We then divided the dough into little balls, rolled them out and placed them on a baking tray, which we put into the very hot oven for about 2 minutes. They should puff up and then they are ready.

We didn't have all the seasonal vegetables the recipe for cypriot vegetables called for - fennel would have been good, but we improvised with what we had and put:

chopped courgettes

already boiled potatoes chopped

a chopped red pepper

A couple of onions chopped

4 garlic cloves sliced

half a tin of chopped tomatoes (as we didn't have enough fresh)

75ml olive oil

fresh sage leaves

handful chopped fresh coriander and parsley

into a hot oven (220c) and baked them for 20 minutes, stirred and baked for a further 30 minutes.

Lastly we made a Greek salad:

4 tomatoes chopped

1 red onion sliced

1/2 cucumber chopped

lots of olives stoned

some cubed feta cheese

fresh coriander leaves

fresh parsley sprigs

Dressing:

5 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp wine vinegar

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp maple syrup

1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

pepper

We tossed everything together and I added rocket leaves because I love them!

we served it all with some quinoa and everyone was happy!

Aaah yes, Summer - meals eaten al fresco, sunshine all day, all those plentiful fruit and vegtetables, seeds growing in the garden - now if only someone could remind the weather that's what it's supposed to be like! How miserable has it been today?!

Being that we haven't been in this house long, I wasn't hopeful for the garden this year - but with a little help from a friend, we're catching up - and there seems to be quite a bit of seedling activity in the sun lounge right now, the courgette plants in our garden last year were amazing, and I'm hoping for the same this year. And Sophia was really pleased to plant some sweetcorn seeds - and they're doing well too - even with my less than regular watering habits! :)

So much to catch up on on this space! I think a massive load of photos is in order next..... :)